Whether constructed from heavy gauge metals with flat or nearly flat profiles, or from lightweight metals with numerous contours, repairing a damaged panel is a laborious and iterative process in which a synthetic body filler is applied in excess to the auto body panel and then the excess material is cut away using a removal tool. Much of the quality of the work lies in the skill of the craftsman's eyes and hands.
Modern automobile panels often have contoured bodylines that extend over several panels appearing contiguous over the length of the automobile. When a panel is damaged, these thin, irregularly shaped panels, are extremely hard to fill accurately, often resulting in a “fix” that simply does not match the original contour. What was a painstaking process in the past, when panels where flat, is presently even more labor intensive, and typically reserved for auto body repair professionals. Additionally, the flow of a bodyline can easily be visually interrupted by miniscule low and high spots along its length as the human eye can detect variations in height down to 1/10,000 of an inch. This is especially true with the more complex bodylines of today's sports cars.
When trying to customize vehicles, the bodylines are often altered because, after all that is generally how vehicles are identified and distinguished. The problem is that the vehicle's bodylines extend the length of the vehicle and to flawlessly change these long sweeping lines so that the human eye cannot detect surface contour deviations is difficult. Not all body repairmen have the exacting skill level required to freehand the reconstruction of a lengthy body line. Henceforth, a device and method of use that allows the body repairman to work from a single or multiple perfect reference lines that outline the sweep of the body panel would fulfill a long felt need in the vehicular body panel repair industry. This new invention utilizes and combines known and new technologies in a unique and novel configuration to overcome the aforementioned problems and accomplish this.